I missed this while I was traveling over the weekend, but Liverpool have withdrawn their application to trademark the Liver bird. According to club spokesman Ian Cotton:

[W]e have listened to the views expressed by many people and recognise the concerns raised over such an iconic image, which has been associated with the city of Liverpool throughout its history.

As such, we have decided to withdraw our application to trademark the Liverpool FC club crest rendition of the Liver Bird.

The problem of counterfeit Liverpool merchandise remains and we look forward to discussing with the council how we can best work together with their support to tackle this significant issue.

Their first step will apparently be to trademark their entire badge for use on clothing, which seems like a sensible step. As I wrote last week, this is a complicated question, and given the number Liverpool shirts that feature the bird without featuring the entire badge, it’s easy to see why they proceeded as they did. But threatening the public character of a 700-year-old civic symbol was a worse move for the club than simply enduring a certain amount of piracy. Good for them for realizing it, even if it took some Liver bird-like shrieking from the city council to make them do so.